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claire shipman
Sanders Meets Freed Trump Political Prisoner Khalil as Columbia Punishes Gaza Protesters
"We must not allow Trump to destroy the First Amendment," Sanders said as the Ivy League school expelled or suspended scores of students in what critics called a bid to win back blocked federal funding.
Jul 22, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday met with Mahmoud Khalil—the former Columbia University Palestine defender recently imprisoned by the Trump administration—on the same day that the school expelled or suspended more than 70 students who protested Israel's genocidal obliteration of Gaza.
Sanders (I-Vt.) posted a photo of himself with his arm around a beaming Khalil, with the caption: "I met with Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, who was imprisoned for 104 days by the Trump administration for opposing [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu's illegal and horrific war in Gaza. Outrageous. We must not allow [U.S. President Donald] Trump to destroy the First Amendment and freedom to dissent."
Khalil, an Algerian citizen of Palestinian descent married to a U.S. citizen, last year finished his graduate studies at Columbia. He was arrested at his New York home by plainclothes Department of Homeland Security officers on March 8 before being transferred to New Jersey and then Louisiana, where he missed the birth of his first child.
Accused of no criminal offense and widely considered a political prisoner, Khalil was arrested following Trump's issuance of an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who take part in pro-Palestine demonstrations. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also invoked the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952—which allows for the deportation of noncitizens whose presence in the United States is deemed detrimental to foreign policy interests—to target peaceful Palestine protesters who have committed no crimes.
Khalil was released last month upon a federal judge's order. He is far from the only student jailed for opposing the Gaza genocide; others include Mohsen Mahdawi and Yunseo Chung—both permanent U.S. residents—as well as Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri, and others.
On Tuesday, Columbia announced disciplinary action against more than 70 students who took part in last year's protests for Gaza at the New York City school's Butler Library. Around 80 Columbia students were arrested amid the violent police crackdown on campus encampments and occupations.
"While the university does not release individual disciplinary results of any student, the sanctions from Butler Library include probation, suspensions (ranging from one year to three years), degree revocations, and expulsions," Columbia's Office of Public Affairs said in a statement.
The school's announcement came days after Columbia and Trump administration officials met in Washington, D.C. to negotiate an agreement to restore most of the nearly $400 million in federal contracts for the university that were canceled in March over an alleged failure to tackle antisemitism.
As part of the deal, Columbia agreed to adopt the dubious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism, which critics say conflates legitimate criticism and condemnation of Israeli policies and practices with anti-Jewish bigotry, and forces people to accept the legitimacy of a settler-colonial apartheid state engaged in illegal occupation and a war that experts increasingly agree is genocidal.
The school also said it would partner with the Anti-Defamation League on antisemitism training. Last year, the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the ADL for what it called a "pattern of enabling anti-Palestinian hate."
Columbia University interim president Claire Shipman has already been working with white nationalist Stephen Miller—Trump's White House deputy chief of staff and a primary architect of the president's first-term migrant family separation and Muslim travel ban policies—to restore lost contracts.
Columbia's acquiescence to the Trump administration comes as Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 215,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, including at least 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Most of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, and hundreds of thousands of Gazans are starving amid an increasingly fatal famine fueled by Israel's siege of the enclave, which is partly the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
Israel has also been accused of committing scholasticide in Gaza, where every university has been destroyed or damaged.
"Hundreds of academics have been killed. Books and archives have been incinerated. Entire families have been erased from the civil registry," said one student quoted in a recent Columbia University Apartheid Divest blog post. "This is not a war. It is a campaign of erasure."
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Columbia President Greeted With Chants of 'Free Mahmoud!' During Graduation Speech
"You arrested us!" graduates shouted at one point in acting president Claire Shipman's address.
May 20, 2025
Columbia University administrators seemed intent on proceeding with an undergraduate commencement ceremony Tuesday as though the Ivy League school hasn't been at the center of student-led anti-genocide protests and government efforts to crack down on free speech for more than a year—but graduating students ensured the school's treatment of student organizers was front-and-center.
As acting president Claire Shipman approached the podium to address students at Columbia College's graduation, she was immediately met with loud booing.
She addressed the response, saying she knows many students feel "some amount of frustration" with her and the administration—but many of the graduates appeared uninterested in hearing from the university leader less than two weeks after she authorized the New York Police Department to enter the campus and arrest dozens of student protesters for occupying the university library in solidarity with Palestinians.
The Trump administration announced shortly after the arrests that they were reviewing the visa status of the student protesters—their latest escalation against pro-Palestinian organizers at the school.
"You arrested us!" graduates shouted at one point in Shipman's address, as she congratulated the Class of 2025 for making it "through one of the most rigorous schools in the world."
Mahmoud Khalil, the 2024 graduate who helped lead negotiations with administrators last year regarding divestment from Israel's military operation in Gaza, was also top-of-mind for many students who started chanting, "Free Mahmoud!" early in Shipman's speech.
"The work of your generation will be to shape these interesting times," Shipman said as the chants rang out.
More than two months after immigration agents arrested Khalil outside his on-campus apartment, he remains in detention in a Louisiana Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. University trustees allegedly gave Khalil's name to the Trump administration ahead of his detention and the Trump administration's revocation of his green card, and administrators did not provide him with protection earlier this year when he told them he feared being swept up in the White House's plans to crack down on free speech.
The Trump administration is pushing to deport Khalil, claiming the pro-Palestinian views he expressed at student protests are detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests. Khalil was one of thousands of U.S. college students who took part in protests calling for schools to divest from companies that benefit from Israel's assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians in 19 months and has included a blockade on humanitarian aid, pushing the civilian population toward famine.
Since stepping in as acting president in March, Shipman has met with faculty that object to Columbia's capitulation to the Trump administration; mentioned the names of Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, another student who was marked for deportation but subsequently freed; and started a website for students who fear deportation.
But students' response on Tuesday suggested they've taken more notice of Shipman's summoning of the NYPD earlier this month and the school's agreement to the Trump administration's demands aimed at rooting out what the White House claims is "antisemitism"—including imposing a ban on masks, appointing an administrator to oversee Middle Eastern and Palestinian studies, and hiring dozens of "special officers" authorized to swiftly remove students from campus.
Students erupted in jeers and laughs when Shipman praised the Class of 2025 for being "curious, determined, and open-minded," and again chanted, "Free Mahmoud!" at another point in the speech.
A larger commencement ceremony is scheduled for Wednesday. Columbia University Apartheid Divest called on members of the school community to attend a protest action coinciding with the graduation.
"No commencement as usual under genocide," read a social media post announcing the protest.
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Trump Admin 'Reviewing' Visas After Arrest of Dozens of Pro-Palestinian Protesters at Columbia
"Repression breeds resistance—if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus," wrote Columbia University Apartheid Divest.
May 08, 2025
The New York Police Department arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian protestors on Columbia University's campus on Wednesday evening—prompting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to announce on X that the federal government is reviewing the visa status of those involved in the action.
On Wednesday afternoon, masked protestors, many wearing keffiyehs, gathered in Columbia's Butler Library. Video of the protest posted to social media shows demonstrators inside the library chanting "free Palestine."
Columbia has been under intense scrutiny from the Trump administration in recent months over the school's alleged failure to protect Jewish students. Critics say the administration is weaponizing antisemitism to attack Palestinian rights advocates. In March, the school faced backlash for making policy changes in line with demands from the Trump administration following the administration's decision to freeze $400 million in federal grants for the school.
Late Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X: "We are reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University's library. Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation."
In January, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order with the professed aim of rooting out antisemitism at higher education institutions, and vowed to target foreign-born students who have engaged in "pro-jihadist" protests.
Acting university president Claire Shipman authorized the NYPD to enter campus around 7 pm on Wednesday in response to the rally in the library, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator. The student paper reported that the NYPD arrested roughly 75 protesters and began leading them out of the library shortly thereafter.
The Daily Spectator also reported that there were altercations between the police and protestors after the arrests made in connection to the library protest.
Eighty people "who did not comply with verbal warnings by the NYPD to disperse" were taken into custody, according to the NYPD, per reporting from CNN. Seventy-eight of those taken into custody were arrested and two others were issued summonses, the NYPD told the outlet. CNN noted that it's not clear how many of those arrested came from the protest inside the building.
The group Columbia University Apartheid Divest wrote on Substack on Wednesday that the protestors renamed the library in honor of Palestinian activist Basil al-Araj.
The organizers said that the action at the library "shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia's profits and legitimacy. Repression breeds resistance—if Columbia escalates repression, the people will continue to escalate disruptions on this campus."
In May of last year, the NYPD swept an occupation of Hamilton Hall and arrested dozens of student protestors.
Wednesday's events come not long after arrests by federal immigration agents of multiple noncitizens who had been active in pro-Palestine actions on Columbia's campus.
In March, federal immigration agents arrested pro-Palestinian activist and former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who is currently languishing in an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Jena, Louisiana. Another Palestinian green-card holder active in Columbia's student protest movement, Mohsen Mahdawi, was also arrested by federal immigration agents, but last month was released on bail.
Both of those cases have generated significant national attention.
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150+ University Leaders Denounce 'Unprecedented' Overreach and Political Coercion by Trump
"The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society."
Apr 22, 2025
A public statement signed by the presidents of more than 150 colleges and universities on Tuesday condemning U.S. President Donald Trump's "political interference" on campuses was notable not only for the higher education leaders who joined the call, said advocates—but for those who didn't.
The open letter, organized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) and titled "A Call for Constructive Engagement," was hardly promoting "a radical idea," said the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at University of Texas at Austin—but the school's president, Jim Davis, was not on the list of signatories.
UT-Austin was one of several where police violently cracked down on student protesters last year when campus demonstrations expressing solidarity with Palestinians facing Israel's U.S.-backed bombardment spread across the country.
A year after those protests took off, starting at Columbia University, the Trump administration has in recent weeks revoked the visas of hundreds of international students for their involvement in student activism, and has claimed to be fighting antisemitism by sending immigration agents to arrest student organizers including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Mohsen Mahdawi, all of whom are still in detention and are being threatened with deportation.
"As leaders of America's colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education," reads the public statement released Tuesday, which was signed by university presidents and leaders including Felix V. Matos-Rodriguez of City University of New York, Maurie McInnis of Yale, Alan M. Garber of Harvard, and Christopher L. Eisgruber of Princeton.
"Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation," the statement continues.
The open letter came a day after Harvard University filed a lawsuit against members of the Trump administration and several federal agencies over the White House's $2.2 billion funding freeze and threat to have the school's tax-exempt status revoked—actions that could threaten crucial cancer research and other biomedical and scientific work.
"Our colleges and universities share a commitment to serve as centers of open inquiry where, in their pursuit of truth, faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation."
The Trump administration's threats to Harvard came in response to the elite university's announcement that it would not comply with the president's demands to "audit its academic programs for viewpoint diversity," expel students involved in an altercation that happened at a pro-Palestinian protest in 2023, and end its recognition of Palestinian solidarity campus groups.
The university leaders who signed Tuesday's statement said they "are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight."
"However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses," they said. "We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding."
The statement also followed the passage of several resolutions by faculty senates at schools in the Big Ten Academic Alliance, led by Rutgers University, which was the first to call for a "mutual defense compact" last month—urging university leaders to commit to band together against Trump's incursion on college campuses and to share resources in the event of a direct attack on students or faculty at their schools.
"I am glad this finally happened," said Rutgers professor Todd Wolfson of the statement released by AACU. "AAUP has been calling for this letter for over a month. If your college or university president did not sign, you need to demand an answer."
Among those who should demand answers from university leaders, suggested some critics on Tuesday, were students and faculty members at Columbia University, whose acting president, Claire Shipman, did not sign the initial letter. Shipman added her signature later in the day on Tuesday.
Columbia allowed police to violently crack down on pro-Palestinian student protesters last year, revoked the degrees of some student organizers, refused to provide protection to Khalil and Mahdawi before their arrests, and at least one university trustee allegedly gave Khalil's name to the Trump administration before he was detained.
Those who did sign on to the statement warned that "the price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society."
"On behalf of our current and future students, and all who work at and benefit from our institutions," reads the statement, "we call for constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic."
Note: This piece has been updated to include a mention of Claire Shipman's signature , which was added to the letter later on Tuesday, April 22.
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Mahmoud Khalil Rips Columbia University's Complicity in Trump Rampage
"The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia's repression playbook concerning Palestine."
Apr 07, 2025
In an op-ed dictated to his attorney from a detention facility in Louisiana, Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil late last week condemned the Ivy League institution's complicity in the Trump administration's targeting of Palestinian rights advocates and campus dissent more broadly.
Khalil, who has said he is a political prisoner, argued in the Friday op-ed that Columbia "laid the groundwork for my abduction" last month by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. The Trump administration's detention of and effort to deport Khalil—who helped lead student protests against Israel's assault on Gaza—have sparked widespread alarm and backlash, much of it directed at Columbia.
"The logic used by the federal government to target myself and my peers is a direct extension of Columbia's repression playbook concerning Palestine," Khalil wrote, pointing to the recent arrests of other international students who have spoken out in support of Palestinian rights.
Writing in the university's daily student newspaper, Khalil noted that "Columbia has suppressed student dissent under the auspices of combating antisemitism," an approach also taken by the Trump administration, which said the arrest of Khalil was carried out in alignment with the president's "executive orders prohibiting antisemitism."
"This institution's singular concern has always been the vitality of its financial profile, not the safety of Jewish students. This is why Columbia was all too happy to embrace a superficial progressive agenda while still disregarding Palestine, and this is why it will soon turn on you, too," he warned. "If there was any illusion left, it shattered last week when the board of trustees executed a historic maneuver to seize direct control of the presidency. Cutting out their middleman, the board appointed fellow trustee Claire Shipman to a position reserved for academic leadership. Who can still pretend this is an educational institution and not the 'Vichy on the Hudson'?"
"Faced with a movement for divestment they couldn't crush, your trustees opted to set fire to the institution they're entrusted with," Khalil continued. "It is incumbent upon each of you to reclaim the university and join the student movement to carry forward the work of the past year."
Khalil and his legal team are currently fighting the Trump administration's effort to remove him from the country. Earlier this month, a second federal judge rejected the Trump administration's request to transfer Khalil's case to Louisiana, a demand that civil liberties advocates decried as a ploy to "manipulate federal court jurisdiction" in order to receive a favorable ruling.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union—which is representing Khalil—stressed in an NBC News op-ed last week that Khalil "has never been accused, charged, or convicted of any crime."
"The Trump administration is sending a message to everyone in America: If you dare to disagree with the president, you will be punished," Lieberman wrote, alluding to a fight over federal funding. "Columbia was just the first target. Harvard and Princeton are now in danger of similar treatment. This is a full-scale attack on the system of free inquiry, discussion, and debate that is at the core of higher education, which is so crucial to the strength of our democracy."
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Dear Columbia: You Are Complicit
Far more than capitulating to American fascism, I believe Columbia is collaborating with it, colluding with it, and emboldening it.
Apr 04, 2025
Dear Columbia University Acting President Claire Shipman, School of International and Public Affairs Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, Columbia University Trustees, SIPA Administrators, and SIPA Program Heads:
I am writing to you on my own behalf, as an individual alumna of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
It has been 27 days, and SIPA has not meaningfully spoken up for Mahmoud Khalil.
On Saturday, March 29—SIPA Alumni Day 2025—rather than celebrating the school and our association with it, a number of SIPA alumni including myself held a press conference and protest at 1:00 pm outside the Columbia gates at 116th St. and Amsterdam Avenue. We condemned SIPA's collusion with the Trump administration (including ICE and DHS) and the NYPD, and the school's failure to act against the Israeli-U.S. genocide of the Palestinian people by:
- Renouncing our degrees and our association with SIPA and Columbia University;
- Destroying our diplomas;
- Pledging to end our donations to SIPA and Columbia University; and
- Pledging to continue to speak publicly on these matters.
As you are no doubt aware, the protest was extensively covered by local, regional, national, and international press outlets, including Democracy Now!, The Guardian, ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Post, Daily News, Fox News, AJ+ (Al Jazeera Plus), The Palestine Chronicle, Middle East Eye, and many more.
Among the many points that were made at the press conference, we alumni made clear that the false conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and the false conflation of Judaism and Zionism by Columbia University, are, in fact, cynical antisemitic ploys that put Jews and all people in danger.
Acting President Shipman: In your first message to the Columbia University community, you wrote, "...to our alumni community, I want to emphasize how important you are to the strength of our institution. Your engagement is critical, and I look forward to your partnership."
However, past statements that you, Ms. Shipman, have made as co-chair of the Board of Trustees do not suggest that common ground can be found. Are you interested in taking rapid steps to change course by:
- Reversing actions taken by your predecessor(s) in acceding to (colluding with) Trump administration demands;
- Condemning the draconian and illegal actions taken against Mahmoud Khalil and other anti-genocide students, faculty, and staff;
- Renouncing Columbia's partnership with the NYPD in repressing Columbia students and militarizing the campus;
- Permanently closing the Tel Aviv Global Center and the Columbia dual degree program with Tel Aviv University; and
- Joining in a "Mutual Defense Compact" to block Trump's campus attacks, as advocated by the Rutgers University Senate, in which schools embody the values of democracy and "commit meaningful funding to a defense fund to provide immediate and strategic support to any member institution under direct political or legal infringement"?
If so, perhaps the large and rapidly increasing number of alumni who are deeply alienated by the university would believe common ground might be found.
Speaking for myself, I have no optimism on any of these scores. I believe Columbia has become, in the words of Professor Rashid Khalidi in an article for The Guardian on March 25, "Vichy on the Hudson." I believe it has damaged its reputation beyond repair. Far more than capitulating to American fascism, I believe Columbia is collaborating with it, colluding with it, and emboldening it, thereby putting at risk not just countless other institutions of higher learning across the country, but our society, global humanitarian values, and the lives of the Palestinian people as well.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Scarlott, SIPA MIA '86 (renounced degree)
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Bezos Event: Billionaires, Trump, Journalists
"This town, man."
Jan 26, 2020
A party in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night hosted by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos featured a who's-who of Trump administration officials, billionaires, and journalists--leading observers to note the "class solidarity" on display between members of the American ruling elite.
" Democracy dies at Jeff Bezos' house," tweeted journalist Dan Froomkin.
The Bezos party came after the Alfalfa Club annual dinner at Cafe Milano in Washington, a yearly event that on Saturday honored Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). Romney brought actor Ben Stiller to the party as a guest; both men were also seen arriving at the Bezos party after the event.
Also in attendance at the party were a number of current and former officials in President Donald Trump's White House. The president's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, both advisers to the president, Transportation Secretary and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Elaine Chao, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, former Trump administration Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, and former National Security deputy adviser Dina Powell were all at the event at Bezos' $23 million D.C. mansion.
The administration officials were joined by a number of wealthy executives and billionaires. Beyond Bezos, the party featured Microsoft founder Bill Gates, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Bridgewater Associates co-CEO David McCormick, billionaire businessman David Rubenstein, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, AOL founder Steve Case, and others.
Kushner's closeness to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who is widely believed to have been behind the October 2, 2018 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashoggi, was noted by Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to the 2020 Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Bezos owns the Post.
"A couple weeks ago Jeff Bezos was tweeting pics from Jamal Khashoggi's memorial," said Duss. "Over the weekend he had Khashoggi's murderer's buddy Jared Kushner over for a party
"This town, man," added Duss.
Members of the media, including CBS Evening News anchor Norah O'Donnell, Politico founder Robert Allbritton, and Good Morning America correspondent Claire Shipman, were guests of Bezos. Former President Barack Obama's Press Secretary Jay Carney and former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan also attended the party.
Such a concentration of elite wealth and power, tweeted Crooked Media's Brian Beutler, appeared tailor-made for a campaign ad for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidacies of Sanders and Sen. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
"Very strange of Jeff Bezos to make such a huge in-kind donation to the Sanders and Warren campaigns," said Beutler.
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